Comparative study of regional ecology of immigrant society and host society with special reference to the adaptive strategy and preadaptation

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At the age of globalization when the movement of people crossing national boundaries is accelerated, peaceful coexistence of human beings is a challenging issue. Immigrants and their communities bring about a variety of geographic phenomena in the context of host society. This study attempted to investigate adaptive strategies that immigrants adopted in order to survive in the host society, to evaluate the degree of preadaptation of immigrant groups, and to analyze various pressures that host society exerted on immigrants. The United States of America, a typical multiracial and multicultural society, was chosen for case studies while attempting to understand American cases with in comparative perspective. Geographic field studies were conducted mainly in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in the state of California on the flowing themes : regional structure of the Los Angeles metropolitan area, immigrants' occupational structure and economic organizations, immigrants' social behavior and social organizations, immigrants' cultural organizations and cultural succession, immigrants' land use and cultural landscape, and immigrants' housing and ethnic landscape. Urban structure of the metropolitan area has been modified due to the changes took place in the industrial composition, while massive new immigrants from Asia and Latin America following the enactment of the Immigration Act of 1965 have transformed the residential structure and urban landscape and increased ethnic diversity. Ethnic features of the Los Angeles metropolitan area were carefully documented, and case studies were conducted on such immigrant groups as Japanese, Chinese, German, Dutch, Portuguese, and Hispanics. These studies suggest that accumulation of geographic case studies is important for understanding multiracial-multicultural society and that conceptual framework needs to be constructed in order to carry out global comparative studies.